Melting the Ice
by tacosandflowers
Summary: AU story about college love. Peeta is a star ice hockey player with a promising future, playing for Dartmouth College before taking a shot at an NHL career. Katniss is the serious girl from his high school he always admired from afar but who never gave him the time of day. When Katniss transfers to Dartmouth their junior year, can Peeta convince her to smile once in awhile?
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Hi everyone, this is an AU fic that's been floating around in my mind for a little while. I want to play with the idea of Katniss and Peeta being from the same hometown but connecting for the first time when they run into each other in college. For some reason Peeta's character has always made me think he'd make a great hockey player, so I'm excited to experiment with that idea here. _

_The premise: Peeta is a star ice hockey player with a promising future, playing for Dartmouth College before taking a shot at an NHL career. Katniss is a quiet, serious girl from his high school, from a family without much money. Her intelligence and her Native American background earn her a scholarship to Dartmouth, and she transfers there junior year. When Peeta sees her for the first time on campus, he thinks he finally has his chance to get to know the girl he's had a crush on for years. But Katniss is focused on schoolwork and is hesitant to open up to anyone, especially a star athlete whose world is so different from her own. Can Peeta convince her to smile once in a while? _

_Let me know what you think! I have an idea of where the story is going, but I will be more motivated to write if I know people are interested in reading it. The rating starts at T for language, but will likely shift to M in the near-ish future because I love writing lemons._

* * *

When Peeta Mellark saw her face from across the dining hall, he was sure he was hallucinating. He hadn't seen that face in two years, and he certainly hadn't expected to ever see it here, at Dartmouth College. To see _her_ here.

Katniss Everdeen. The girl he had admired from afar for years. The beautiful, brilliant, quiet girl he'd gone to school with since kindergarten, who had always intrigued him but who had seemed destined for a different path than his own.

He recognized her instantly, her slender form in a gray sweater and slim jeans with the same brown leather boots he remembered her wearing in high school. She was carrying a tray towards the back of the dining hall to drop it off, clearly finished with her lunch, staring ahead seriously as if she was on a mission.

He remembered that look. He had always wondered if he could tease a smile out of her, since smiles were something she rarely gave. But he'd never had the chance to try.

"Peeta," a voice said. It was his friend and teammate Jack Horton. "Peeta, you're staring. You're also losing your lunch."

Peeta was having lunch with several of his varsity hockey teammates, something they always did together when their class schedules coincided. He looked back at Jack and sure enough a large bite of lasagna that he had been about to put in his mouth was sliding off his fork and onto the plate with a plop.

Jack was laughing at him. "What's the deal, man? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Peeta shook his head. "No, it's just… I'll be right back."

He was on his feet then, leaving his friends staring after him as he got up to make his way across the cafeteria, his muscular 6 foot frame pushing through the lunch crowd to where he had seen her heading to return her empty dishes and tray.

He wasn't sure what he was more afraid of—that he would miss her, or that he _had_ been hallucinating and she wasn't actually there at all.

And then he saw the flash of a shiny, dark braid and knew he had been right. He'd been seeking out that braid since he was five years old.

"Katniss?" he called out, not caring that they were in the crowded cafeteria. "Katniss, is that you?"

The girl stopped and turned slowly, and there she was, dark brown hair pulled into a braid along the right side of her olive-toned face, her wide-set gray eyes the color of slate looking at him in confusion.

"Katniss, hi, um…"

Her eyes sharpened in recognition all of a sudden. "Peeta Mellark? From Minnesota?"

He broke into a wide grin to mask his sigh of relief and pushed a lock of blonde hair out of his face to get a better look at her. That would have been embarrassing, to chase a girl across the room only to have her not recognize him.

"Yeah," he said. "You remember me."

He thought he saw a hint of a smile tug at the corner of her mouth before her face went serious again. "I knew you were here. Everyone from back home knows you're here. Duluth's own Ivy League hockey star."

Peeta shrugged this off. "I had no idea you were here," he said.

People continued to mill around them and Katniss tilted her head to indicate that they could go outside to get some more space instead of blocking the lunch rush. He followed her willingly.

"What are you doing here, Katniss?" he asked once they were out on the steps.

"I go to school here now. I started three weeks ago."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I transferred from UMD when they found me some scholarship money. So, uh, yeah. Here I am, I guess."

"That's awesome!" Peeta said. "We have to hang out sometime."

She looked confused. "We weren't friends in high school, Peeta. You don't have to be nice to me just because we're from the same hometown. I can take care of myself."

Peeta felt a twinge of confusion at her words. Sure they hadn't been part of the same crowd in high school. He was on the hockey team, so he was automatically lumped in with the jocks. Katniss hadn't been part of any crowd, really. But she had always intrigued him. He had always wanted to be her friend, and suddenly here she was, at the same school as him thousands of miles from where they grew up.

"I just thought… I don't know, I've been here for two years already, I could show you around?"

"Um, we had orientation for that, but thanks."

She was a tough nut to crack, but he wasn't surprised. She'd always been tough, and standoffish.

"Trust me, there's way more to this place than what you learn in orientation. Give me a chance, Katniss?"

He hoped his charm was working, and for a moment he could see the expression in her eyes getting softer, as if she might be ready to give in and say yes.

But then her expression changed back to its hardened exterior as she looked past his shoulder to where a group of guys had just burst through the dining hall doors. Half of them wore Dartmouth Hockey shirts, proclaiming exactly who they were and what their place was on this campus. "Hey Mellark, where'd you go?" one of them shouted.

It was Jack. "Come on dude, we gotta go to the rink to meet with Coach."

Peeta sighed. "Right, I forgot. Katniss, this is my friend Jack…"

But Katniss was already walking away. "I have to run to class. I'll see you around, Peeta," she said, shouldering her backpack and avoiding eye contact. And then she was walking quickly towards the campus green, her strong legs carrying her swiftly in her boots.

Peeta watched her go, a mix of hope and sadness in his chest. She was here, at Dartmouth. The girl he had secretly had a crush on for years, the girl who had never had the time of day for him. And so far, it seemed like she didn't plan on making any time for him now even though they were in the same place.

"Who was that?" Jack asked. "She's kinda cute."

Peeta bristled at his teammate's assessment-he felt protective of Katniss-but decided to let it go for now. "That's Katniss Everdeen. She's from my hometown. I never thought I'd see her again."

* * *

Katniss stared down at her biology textbook, highlighter in hand, reviewing the materials for her class tomorrow. She was tucked into a study carrel high up in the stacks of Baker Library, a spot she had discovered on the first day of classes when she knew she would need somewhere other than her dorm room to do schoolwork.

She forced herself to focus until she finished the assigned section and then put the cap on her highlighter with a sigh. Now that her work was done, she could finally let her mind wander to where it had been trying to go all afternoon and evening—to her encounter with Peeta Mellark.

She supposed she knew he would be here at Dartmouth too. Everyone in her old neighborhood knew who Peeta Mellark was. A talented hockey player from a young age, Peeta had been on two state championship teams in high school. His skills as a defenseman got him scouted by colleges and professional teams alike, and he had the brains to get accepted at Dartmouth College, an elite school with a strong hockey program. When he was drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers the summer after he turned 18, he decided to continue on to Dartmouth and play NCAA hockey to strengthen his game before taking a shot at the professional level after graduation.

Katniss knew all of this because it had been reported in the school paper, the local paper, the local news… Minnesotans love their hockey, and they love to see local boys succeed.

Katniss' path to Dartmouth was much different from Peeta's. Everything about her life was different from his, she figured, besides sharing a zip code and attending the same schools. She was shocked, really, that he even knew who she was. Peeta's family owned a nice grocery store in Duluth called Mellark's Market, one that specialized in organic foods, locally sourced fruits and vegetables, and had a delicious in-store bakery and coffee shop.

Katniss' family didn't shop at Mellark's. They couldn't afford it. Katniss' little sister, Primrose, would gaze at the delicious-looking baked goods in the display window as they went out to shop, but Katniss would steer her on towards Buy-Low, the budget grocery store where their food stamps went much farther.

Katniss and Prim's mother, Collette, was part Chippewa and had grown up on the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation west of Duluth, but she moved to the city as soon as she could, seeking a better life for herself. She got her nursing degree and married a truck driver named Terry Everdeen. They had two daughters and their small family lived a reasonably comfortable lower-middle-class life. This all changed when Terry was killed in an accident when another semi-truck jackknifed in front of his, and Collette was left to raise the girls alone. She worked as hard as she could at her nursing job in the hospital, but her income was a stretch to raise two growing girls.

Once she was old enough Katniss worked as many after-school jobs as she could to help out, but Collette wouldn't let her take on too much responsibility. "It's more important for you to graduate high school and go to college, Katniss," she always said. "You're so smart. You can go so much farther in life than I ever could."

Katniss had worked hard and received a partial scholarship to the University of Minnesota at Duluth. She spent two years there studying biology and had been prepared to spend two more before graduating, when one day a phone call from the tribal office at Fond du Lac changed the course of things.

There was scholarship money for her, because she was part Chippewa, to go to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. The Native American Program at Dartmouth sought out the best and the brightest Native students in the country, and someone at Fond du Lac had thought of her.

When she asked her mother about it, Collette shrugged and said, "It might have been your auntie Sue."

It had been Sue. While Collette had moved away to Duluth to pursue a life off the reservation, her older sister Sue had stayed and become the family matriarch and a formidable figure on the tribal council. When Dartmouth contacted the tribal office to see if any young scholars would be interested in applying for a scholarship, Sue had immediately thought of her niece.

"But Aunt Sue, I'm already in my second year of college at UMD," Katniss had protested on the phone.

"I know you are, dear, but this is an incredible opportunity for you. An Ivy League school wants you, Katniss, and you wouldn't have to pay a cent. A diploma from Dartmouth would open up so many doors. You could do anything with your life with a degree from a place like that. Think about how much you could do for your mom and your sister."

That had sealed it for Katniss. Family was more important to her than anything else. She would hate to move away from her mother and Prim, but it would only be for two years and it was true that a Dartmouth degree could get her places a UMD degree couldn't. The biology program was very strong and the connections she would make could set her up for any number of future opportunities.

And so she had said yes, and filled out the forms Aunt Sue gave her, and the next thing she knew she was packing up her meager possessions and moving to Hanover, New Hampshire.

It had been a shock to her system to get here, that was for sure. The fancy old buildings awed her, with their history and their hallowed halls of learning. UMD would always hold a special place in her heart, but this was the kind of college campus you saw in the movies, old brick buildings built in the 1800s with big white columns.

The student body was also a shock. Spoiled didn't even begin to describe most of the people here, with their east coast prep school pedigrees and their senses of entitlement. As a transfer student, she had been placed in a double room with another transfer student, a girl named Stacy Glimmer who seemed to be there more to please her family and party than anything else.

Stacy's explanation of how she ended up there went like this: "I was at Colgate for a year but my dad was really disappointed I didn't get into Dartmouth the first time around so he made me apply again as a transfer and, well, here I am. Which is cool because the sororities here are way better than at Colgate anyway. Which sororities do you plan on rushing?"

Katniss' attention span had faded out early on—she couldn't handle Stacy's high-pitched voice—and of course she had no plans to rush a sorority, so Stacy soon lost interest in her, and Katniss decided she would be spending a lot of time in the library.

Luckily, the library had some great little spots for studying, so she didn't mind it. She had been here every weeknight so far, determined to keep up with her schoolwork. The classroom atmosphere was much more competitive than what she was used to, and she wanted to stay ahead of the game. She counted herself lucky if she finished her work before the library closed, which it would in half an hour.

Katniss shut her textbook and stared at the cover, seeing wide shoulders and blonde hair in her mind rather than what was actually on book. Peeta Mellark. He wanted to "hang out sometime" with her, whatever that meant. She couldn't believe he even knew who she was. Their high school hadn't been small, and people like Peeta and the other hockey players didn't operate in the same universe as people like Katniss. They were kings of the school, along with the other jocks, and the kinds of girls they hung out with had never given Katniss the time of day.

Not that she cared. She'd had a life of her own, her after school jobs and her homework, her family, and her own friends. Not many of them, of course, but she thought the popular kids didn't really have many real friends anyway. It was all just a bunch of bullshit, people trying to climb the social ladder while forming as few real connections as possible. Real friendships took too much time.

She thought of her friend Gale, who had been a few years ahead of her in school. Gale's family was from the Reservation too, although he spent more time there than Katniss ever did. Their families had lived in the same run down apartment building in Duluth and they had spent hours as children exploring the local neighborhood and playing in whatever woods they could find. After Gale graduated high school he began training to be a welder, and he now spent half of the year working on remote pipeline projects in Alaska, so she didn't see him often. They emailed when they could, to stay in touch, but she still felt far away from him, her only real friend besides her sister.

She opened her computer and found Gale's name in her Gchat window, happy to see a green circle next to his name indicating that he was online.

**Katniss:** Hey Gale, you there?

**Gale:** Hey Catnip, long time no chat!

**Katniss:** I know, sorry

**Gale:** No worries.

How's things at your fancy new school?

**Katniss:** Good so far.

Lots of work.

You'll never guess who I ran into today.

**Gale:** Hmm, let's see, famous Dartmouth people…

Dr. Seuss? Didn't he go there?

**Katniss:** Haha, but no.

Do you remember Peeta Mellark from high school?

**Gale: **Oh yeah, the hockey player whose family owns the fancy grocery store?

**Katniss:** That's him.

He goes to Dartmouth too.

**Gale:** I think I remember hearing about that from someone back in Duluth.

**Katniss:** Yeah, he plays hockey here.

Anyway, I ran into him in the dining hall today during lunch.

It was super awkward.

**Gale:** You? Awkward? No… ;)

**Katniss:** Shut up.

He recognized me and said we should "hang out sometime" or something.

Weird right?

**Gale:** Why is that weird?

**Katniss:** Uh, because he was a super popular jock in high school and I was one of the poor kids who was basically invisible to the rest of the student population?

**Gale:** You weren't that invisible, Katniss.

**Katniss:** Whatever.

It still weirds me out.

**Gale:** So are you gonna "hang out" with him or what?

And why are you using quotation marks?

**Katniss:** Because I find that phrase to be kind of silly.

And I don't know, we didn't really get to finish our conversation.

He got sucked back into his hockey bro posse and I had to go to class.

**Gale:** Well, maybe you'll run into him again.

It wouldn't be bad to make a friend there, Catnip.

**Katniss:** Ha, these east coast kids are from another planet than us, Gale.

**Gale:** Yeah, but Peeta's from Duluth just like you.

Maybe you should give him a chance.

Katniss was about to type a reply when a voice came over the intercom: "Attention please, the library will be closing in fifteen minutes."

**Katniss:** Ok, gotta run, the library is about to close.

Chat again soon?

**Gale:** Yeah, you better update me if you see Mellark again.

**Katniss:** Fine, whatever.

Goodnight Gale.

**Gale:** Goodnight Katniss.

She closed her computer and began to pack her things up to return to her dorm. She always loved talking through things with Gale, even when it was just over Gchat from afar.

He was always bugging her about opening up to people and making more friends. A tiny piece of her inside wondered if this time she might actually take his advice.

* * *

…to be continued…


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thanks for the positive response everyone! This is a fun story to write. This chapter is a lot of background but towards the end the plot starts to get rolling... Obligatory disclaimer: I don't own THG or any of the characters (of course), but all typos etc are my own fault.

* * *

Peeta didn't see Katniss again for a while, but it didn't matter. After their encounter in the dining hall, her face haunted him night and day. He couldn't get her out of his mind.

It was a rush of memories at first. Their first day of kindergarten so many years ago, when she was a tiny girl with two dark braids and wide gray eyes. He had wanted to be her friend immediately, and asked his mother if he could invite her over to play. His mother had responded, "We don't associate with those kinds of people."

He hadn't understood at the time. What child does? It was only as he grew older that he began to learn about differences and prejudice. "Those kinds of people," to his mother, were people with little money, people "from the Rez." Every kid who grows up in Minnesota learns the history of the Native Americans in the region, but that history didn't explain to Peeta why the social injustices existed in modern times, or why his mother made such comments.

"But Katniss isn't from the reservation, Mama," Peeta had said once when he asked again to invite her over. "She lives in the same neighborhood as us."

His mother shook her head. "You don't understand, Peeta. She's different from us."

After that, he had been afraid to bring her up around his mother, and so he didn't.

As time went by, the social groups at their school had become established in the ways they do at every school. Kids gravitated towards those who were similar to them. Peeta learned that being good at sports meant he was expected to be friends with the other boys who were good at sports. Girls and boys weren't supposed to be friends, so even though he wanted to be friends with Katniss, he knew he couldn't be, because she was a girl.

Once Peeta's hockey talents became apparent, that sport took over most of his free time. He had learned to skate when he was four years old, and had been playing on a team since he was old enough for his parents to sign him up for one. His older brothers played too, but something about Peeta was special. He was the star defenseman on his youth teams, and he made the varsity squad as a freshman in high school.

Peeta thought it was strange how people assumed that just because he was good at hockey, he was special for some reason. People he didn't know at all started acting like they were his friends. Girls flirted with him constantly, slipping him their phone numbers and asking him out on dates. He loved to skate, loved the energy of a game, and he was happy to be part of a team. But he didn't see why that made him any different from the other kids his age.

His older brother Teemu had explained it to him when Peeta was a freshman and girls kept calling the house to ask if he wanted to go to the winter formal.

"Don't you get it, Peeta?" Teemu had asked, laughing. "You're a hockey star. All the guys want to be your friend. All the girls want to be your girlfriend."

Peeta hadn't gotten it. "But they don't even _know_ me, not really. All they know is that I'm good at hockey. Doesn't anybody care about who I am as a person besides the fact that I play hockey?"

Teemu had scoffed at his little brother's naivete. "Of course not. This is Minnesota, Peeta. If you're good at hockey, nothing else matters."

This irked Peeta. He loved the game, but he also loved to read books, and he wished he had the time to learn how to play an instrument, maybe the piano or the guitar. Nobody ever asked him about these things. It was like nothing about him mattered except his physical prowess on the ice.

Teemu and their oldest brother, Mika, had teased Peeta endlessly about the girls who kept calling. "You're so lucky, little bro, and you don't even realize it," Mika had joked once when they were all working at the family store; well, when Mika and Teemu were working. Peeta's parents wanted him to focus on hockey as much as possible, so they didn't expect him to put in time at the store. But Peeta loved to hang out there. It was time for him to be with his brothers.

"What do you mean?" he had asked.

Teemu threw a croissant at him. "Um, you could have any girl in the school if you wanted. They're all throwing themselves at you. Just pick one and take her to the dance, it isn't that hard."

Peeta's mind had immediately gone to Katniss. She had grown into a beautiful girl, and his desire to be her friend had grown into a full-blown crush now that they were in high school. But she wasn't the kind of girl who called Peeta and asked him to take her to the winter formal. She was nothing like those girls. Katniss Everdeen spent her lunch period in the library, studying, and she never participated in school social events.

"Well, there is this one girl, but I don't think she even knows who I am," Peeta had said.

Mika and Teemu looked at him like he had grown another head. "You're such a weirdo, Peeta," Mika had joked. "Of course you would pick the one girl at Central High who has no idea who you are."

"Forget her," Teemu had said. "Carlie Anderson called yesterday. She is _by far_ the hottest girl in your class. You'd be an idiot not to take her to the dance.

Peeta wasn't interested in Carlie Anderson. If his brothers thought he could have any girl he wanted, maybe now was the time to take a chance and talk to Katniss. Even if she didn't know who he was—more likely she didn't _care_ who he was—his brothers seemed to think he had some kind of social status that should get girls' attention. Maybe he should at least try?

In the end he had blown his chance. When he finally worked up the nerve to approach her at her locker one day before homeroom, he found her talking to a guy, an upperclassman, tall and dusky like her, and the guy had his hand on Katniss' arm. They were having an intense conversation. Who was he? Was he her boyfriend?

And then Carlie Anderson had suddenly been standing in front of him, her blonde hair bouncing, her lips shiny with wet pink gloss. "Peeta, I was wondering…"

Peeta's jealousy at seeing Katniss with that guy made him do something irrational. "Uh, the winter formal, you want to go?" he had mumbled, fighting to break his gaze from Katniss.

"Yes!" Carlie had shrieked.

And that had been that. Peeta was sucked into the social life that was expected of him. His brothers and his teammates congratulated him on "landing" Carlie, and it was the same for the rest of high school. He was never serious about the girls he dated—he was too focused on hockey to have a girlfriend, he told himself—but he went to dances and parties with the ones he was expected to go with.

Katniss was never at those dances or those parties. He never forgot about her, though. She became something he could never have. What would a smart, serious girl like Katniss want with a hockey player? He was a personable guy, and nobody would have described him as shy, but deep down he knew he was extremely shy when it came to the one girl he was actually interested in. He was terrified of talking to Katniss Everdeen.

She came to represent to him the life that he might have had otherwise, if he hadn't gone down the path he had. He fantasized about reading books and talking about them with her, taking her out for coffee and going to see foreign films. Asking her about her Chippewa heritage, talking about his own Finnish immigrant background. Proving to his mother and everyone else that nobody, not Katniss, not him, could be summarized by the superficial labels assigned to them by the world in which they lived.

That had all been a fantasy, of course. His real life was hockey and his future playing it. He got good grades in school, not that anybody cared as long as he was helping his team win on the ice. When the Dartmouth coach called, it had been a dream come true for him. He knew hockey could bring him college opportunities he wouldn't have otherwise, and he planned to take advantage of that. His mother told everyone that he was destined for the NHL, but Peeta had a backup plan. He knew how hard it was to actually make it in the pros, that it only took one injury to end a career and then what? If he could get a college degree while playing hockey, he could be prepared for a future with or without the sport.

And so he had committed to play at Dartmouth. He had entered the NHL draft like most guys his age and talent-level did, but he knew that being drafted didn't guarantee a professional career. He was selected in a later round by the Philadelphia Flyers, and the organization gave him a hat and welcomed him to the league, but actually playing for them someday was all dependent on how he played in college. He would have to continue to get bigger and stronger and more skilled. If that happened, great. If not, he would have a diploma to help him do something else.

As it turned out, he loved playing for the Dartmouth team. He was with other guys like himself, guys who wanted to play in the NHL someday but who also wanted to go to school. It was weird to suddenly be around people who were good at hockey _and_ who were smart.

The social life, however, wasn't that much different than high school, at least in terms of organization. He was expected to be in the athletic clique, expected to rush the same fraternity as his teammates. The same type of tanned, skinny girls followed them around vying for their attention.

Peeta thought that, as a junior in college, life would be pretty much like it had been for the past two years. They would train all fall and then spend the winter fighting for the conference title. Peeta was an assistant captain this year, so he would help lead the rest of the team along with their captain, Finnick Odair.

And now, suddenly, things were different. Katniss was here. Katniss was here, at Dartmouth, and he wasn't just some teenage boy who did was his mother and brothers and teammates expected him to do anymore. He was twenty-one years old, and he was learning who he was as an individual, who Peeta Mellark was besides "Peeta Mellark, hockey player."

Could he be Peeta Mellark, friend of Katniss Everdeen?

* * *

_Please be here, please be here_, Peeta thought to himself as he entered the dining hall. Dartmouth wasn't a big school, so the chances of running into her at the same place he had before, on the same day of the week, were decent. Class schedules didn't change until next term.

The problem was, he had tried the same thing last week. And the week before. It had been three weeks since he had seen Katniss, and he was inclined to think she was just a figment of his imagination.

Well, he would think that except for the fact that he had been stalking her on the Internet, like everyone did these days when they were interested in someone. She wasn't on Facebook, which didn't surprise him. But Dartmouth's email directory made it easy to look up fellow students, and he had found her in there. However, just because he had her email address didn't mean he would use it. He wasn't that creepy…yet.

He sat at the table with his teammates, vaguely listening to them loudly joking about something but not really paying attention, and stared at the door.

_Please, please, please… _ his mind said like a mantra, and then suddenly he saw it. A flash of shiny braid, a curve of shoulder he would know anywhere in the world, slipping through the front door.

He shot up from his seat and grabbed his backpack, leaving his tray and his raucous group of friends, and followed her out of the dining hall.

The sun was shining that day, and while he chased her out into the courtyard between buildings all he could think of was how pretty the sunlight looked where it reflected off of her hair.

Instead of calling out her name this time, he sped up until he was able to walk in front of her and then turn around to walk backwards, facing her.

"Hi," he said.

Katniss stopped. "Peeta," she said, surprised. She looked beautiful, he thought, even in a simple green sweatshirt and black yoga pants.

Peeta bit his lip to keep from grinning like a fool. He was just so happy to see her again.

"Hey there, I, uh, I was wondering if I would ever see you again." He cursed himself internally for sounding so awkward.

Katniss shrugged. "Well, we do go to the same school." She made a move to continue walking. "Look, I have to go to class…"

"Can I walk with you?" Peeta said.

"Sure, I guess, although the biology building isn't exactly on the way to anything," she said.

Biology. Of course she was taking biology. He remembered her winning science prizes in high school.

"It's fine, I don't have class until later. I wanted to talk to you, anyway."

Katniss' eyebrows raised up in surprise as they began to walk across the large grassy quad, know as "the Green," that formed the middle of the campus.

"Why?" she asked.

"Well, we didn't really get a chance to catch up last time, and I know you said that we weren't friends in high school, but… maybe we could hang out sometime, talk about Duluth?"

Katniss smiled wryly, and felt his heart flutter at her new facial expression. "You want to reminisce about the good old days?"

Peeta chuckled. "We can if you want to."

Katniss shook her head. "I've worked hard to block high school out of my memory. It wasn't all fun and games for me like it was for you."

"You think that's what it was for me?" Peeta asked. He wasn't sure where this conversation was going, but she was talking to him, which was more than she'd ever done before.

"I _know_ that's what it was for you. You were on the hockey team. You guys and your groupies pretty much ruled the place. I was just another invisible nobody."

"You weren't invisible," Peeta said.

Katniss had been looking at the ground as they walked, her characteristic focus in place, but she looked up and over at him when he said that. Her expression was both curious and wary.

"Um, yeah I was," she said. "You didn't even talk to me until what, three weeks ago? And that's just because we happen to go to the same school now and we're the only kids from Duluth here."

"That's not the only reason I'm talking to you, Katniss," Peeta said, feeling frustrated. He didn't know how to articulate what he was thinking, which was rare for him. "I…we've been in the same school since kindergarten, remember?"

"Yeah, but we're…different," she replied, her voice quiet.

"No, we're not," Peeta said, his voice low and serious. "Katniss, I want to be your friend."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because…I don't know, I just do, ok? We're in our twenties now, we're in college in fricking New Hampshire of all places, thousands of miles away from our past. We can be whoever we want to be. Yeah, we didn't talk in high school, and maybe that's a good thing, because in high school all anyone cared about was me as a hockey player. And you didn't care about that kind of stuff. And I don't know why, but that makes me want to get to know you."

Katniss held his gaze. "You're an odd one," she said quietly.

Peeta let out a sigh of relief. He'd half expected her to run away after his random outburst. "Yeah, well, you're not the first person to think that."

Her face cracked into a small smile. They were arriving at the biology building, and he knew he didn't have much time left. He was about to speak when she beat him to it.

"Okay," she said.

"Okay?" he repeated.

"Okay, let's hang out sometime, or whatever."

Peeta felt his heart lift. "Really? Great. How about this weekend?"

Katniss got serious again. "I've got a lot of homework."

"Katniss, this is Dartmouth. We all have a lot of homework."

She kicked at the ground with her shoe, focused on a crack in the sidewalk. "I guess I could take some time off on Saturday afternoon."

"Saturday afternoon it is. I promise not to distract you from your studies for too long. Have you been down to the river yet?"

Katniss shook her head. "I've been busy trying to stay on top of work to do much exploring."

Peeta smiled, his excitement building. "Well, you're gonna love it. Everyone does. It's one of the best things about going to school here. Where on campus do you live?"

"I'm in Mid-Fayer," she said, giving him the short name for her dorm.

"Great, I'm just down the hill from you. How about we meet in front of your dorm at 2 on Saturday? Wear something to go canoeing in." Peeta knew she would know what this meant, being a Minnesota kid like him.

"Ok, sure," Katniss said. She still sounded wary.

"Hey," Peeta said, "This will be fun, I promise."

A tiny smile tugged at her lips again and he felt the same flutter he felt the first time he saw her start to smile.

He waved as she went into the biology building and let his own smile spread fully across his face into an unabashedly triumphant grin.

He couldn't wait for Saturday.

* * *

…to be continued…

A/N 2: Coming up next, Katniss and Peeta go canoeing…


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: This chapter is kind of a hot mess but I wanted to get it up to keep things rolling. And once I got to the party scene I got a little carried away so here you go..._

* * *

Katniss pulled her blue fleece—a great score at the Salvation Army—over her head and shook her hair out before pulling it into her usual braid, pondering herself in her dorm room mirror. She was dressed to go canoeing, like Peeta had said to do, so she had the fleece on over a flannel shirt to ward off the chill of the beautiful fall day, along with jeans and old sneakers. No need to dress fancy for something like canoeing; this kind of activity demanded practicality, and Katniss was nothing if not practical.

She had returned from the library after a morning of working to find her roommate, Stacy, just beginning to stir from bed.

"Ugh, why are you up so early?" Stacy groaned, squinting at the light, undoubtedly hung over.

"It's almost two," Katniss said.

"Why are you dressed like you're going camping?"

"I'm going canoeing."

"Really? With who?"

Katniss paused. "A friend," she finally said.

"This is, like, the first fun thing you've done since you got here, Katniss," Stacy said as she sat up, obviously intrigued by her roommate's atypical behavior.

"I'm just trying to—"

" 'stay on top of things,'" Stacy interrupted. "I know, I know. You're so serious all the time though. It's good you're going out and doing something fun."

Katniss didn't want or need Stacy's approval, but she gave her roommate a small smile anyway as she grabbed her beat up canvas tote bag—the closest she ever got to carrying a purse—and headed for the door.

Her cell phone chimed just as she was turning the doorknob and she pulled it out of her bag, giving Stacy a wave goodbye.

She had a text from Prim: _Have fun on your date with Peeta!_

Katniss rolled her eyes. Prim was sixteen and boy crazy, much better at social life than Katniss had ever been in high school. She had squealed when Katniss told her on the phone the night before that she was doing something with a boy.

"Katniss! No way! You're going on a date?"

"It's not a date, Prim," she had groaned.

"But you're doing something with a boy, right?"

"He just wants to get together because he's from Duluth too. He graduated from Central High the same year as me. His family owns Mellarks."

"OMG!" Prim had exclaimed. She always made Katniss laugh, the way she spoke in abbreviations like the text-crazy teen she was.

"It's not a date, Prim," Katniss repeated.

"Whatever, Katniss. I can't wait to hear all about it!"

And now she was texting, which didn't surprise Katniss, although she wished she hadn't divulged so much information. She didn't need her sixteen-year-old sister teasing her via smartphone when she was already nervous as it was.

_Why am I nervous? _she thought to herself. _I'm just making a new friend, that's all. I can do this._

Walking down the hallway to the front door of her dorm, she managed to work her way into a confident mindset.

And then she opened the door and saw him standing there, and her confidence fled.

She hadn't paid much attention to him in high school, and the other day she had been too nervous to really look at him, but now she was letting herself look and…wow. He was standing casually in front of the steps to her dorm, his muscular shoulders encased in a grey sweater, his strong legs in a pair of old, well-fitting jeans. His thick blonde hair threatened to fall into his eyes, something she had noticed it did the other day. He had a day or two of dark blonde stubble on his strong jaw that leant his blue-eyed visage an edginess she wasn't prepared for.

Peeta Mellark was hot.

_Get it together, Everdeen_, she said to herself.

He was smiling at her with an openness she was beginning to realize was normal for him.

"Hey Katniss," he said, walking towards her. "Ready to go canoeing?"

She shrugged, her go-to reaction when she wasn't sure what to say, and felt a small smile tugging at her facial muscles. Something about Peeta's own open smiles was contagious. "Yeah. Let's do it."

"We're in luck. I called the canoe club this morning, this is the last weekend they're open before closing down for the season."

They began to walk. The Dartmouth campus went all the way to the banks of the Connecticut River, with a mix of dorms, classroom buildings, and woods leading down the sloping hill to the water. She'd been meaning to go down to the river ever since she got to school—she'd always felt at home in the woods, and being from Duluth she missed having the constant presence of the water of Lake Superior. She knew Dartmouth was known for it's beautiful, almost wilderness-like location, but she had yet to explore any of it.

"I didn't even know there was a canoe club," she said, and was surprised to find she had spoken out loud.

"Oh yeah," Peeta said. "There's a student-run club with a clubhouse right down on the water. They have all kinds of canoes and kayaks you can rent. I have a membership so the rental is free. You've been canoeing before, right?"

Katniss let herself meet his eyes. "Of course I have, I'm from Minnesota. Land of Ten Thousand Lakes?"

He laughed. "You're right, that was a silly question. Well, the canoeing here is on a river, but it's really wide and flat, more like a slow-moving lake than a river. So we won't have to worry about going over any waterfalls."

"That's good to know. So, do you go canoeing here a lot?"

"Not as much as I'd like to, unfortunately. Hockey kind of gets in the way of, well, everything. But I've done enough to explore the river and find some pretty cool little islands and side channels. There's a rope swing, too, but it's a bit cold for that this time of year."

The walk to the river was pleasant. October in this part of New England was exceptionally beautiful, especially on a sunny day. The fall foliage drew tourists from all over, and Katniss could see why. The leaves changed in Minnesota too, but something about this place was unique.

It was even more beautiful down by the water. Peeta greeted the guy working the desk at the canoe club and signed out a canoe with two paddles and life jackets.

"Do you need help with the boat?" Katniss asked.

"No, I can get it. But could you grab the paddles and life jackets? Meet me down at the dock?"

Next thing she knew, Peeta was walking out of the boat shed, holding the boat with one arm. Once he was fully out of the shed, he reached his other arm across the canoe and flipped the entire thing up and over his head until the thwarts rested on his shoulders and his arms steadied the sides. His muscles rippled beneath the gray wool of his sweater—which fitted rather closely to his body, she thought, although she wasn't complaining—and he grinned at her as he began walking down to the dock.

"Minnesota canoe skills," he said jokingly.

Katniss followed him down the dock and watched as he lowered the canoe back over his shoulder and slid it into the water.

"Well I'm from Minnesota too and I can't do that," Katniss said, handing over the paddles and life jackets.

Peeta put the equipment into the canoe and then straightened, reaching his hand out to her. She hesitated at first, then took his hand. He led her towards the front of the canoe.

"How do you know I don't want to sit in the back?" she asked, her voice taking on a teasing tone that she knew she rarely used. Being around Peeta made her act strangely, she decided.

Peeta immediately looked apologetic. "Do you want to? You can, if you want to…"

Her face broke into a smile and she laughed. "I was kidding. You can do the steering, I don't mind."

"Because if you want to…" He seemed so eager to please her, which made her feel warm and fuzzy inside.

"It's fine, Peeta. I haven't canoed since I was a kid. And you said you know all the cool places to go, so… show me?"

He relaxed and smiled, handing her into the canoe. He hopped into the stern and pushed away from the dock, and soon they were gliding across the water, the reds and oranges and yellows of the leaves reflecting in the water with blue sky in the background. Katniss let herself turn around and look at him where he sat, his toned legs stretched partially in front of him, his arms and shoulders flexing as he began to paddle and steer the canoe towards the middle of the river.

Katniss' cheeks grew warm, and she wasn't sure if it was from the sunshine, or from the thrill coursing through her veins at being in a beautiful place with a handsome—and, she had to admit, really nice—guy.

She turned back around and began to paddle, and they went a little ways without saying anything, just looking around and appreciating the scenery. Katniss recognized this feeling from the walk down, when they had taken an old paved road through a dense, wooded area between the main part of campus and the river. She usually felt awkward around new people, like she was supposed to produce some kind of inane small talk just to fill the space. But somehow it wasn't like that with Peeta. They had talked about some things while they walked, but she felt comfortable just being quiet around him, too.

Maybe they really were becoming friends?

_Or maybe, Everdeen, you could stop overanalyzing this and just enjoy yourself?_

She dipped her paddle again in the water, determined to do just that.

The afternoon ended up being really enjoyable. Peeta hadn't been lying when he said he knew the river. They paddled underneath the main highway bridge to explore some secluded side channels and even stopped to take a break on an island in the middle of the river that had a cabin on it that students could rent from the canoe club.

Katniss especially liked being in the woods, and she told Peeta this as they walked back up the hill towards her dorm.

"I haven't really given myself a chance to explore this place," she admitted.

"Why not?" Peeta asked, his dark blue eyes shining in the fading sunlight, his hair tousled by the fall breeze.

Katniss bit her bottom lip as she contemplated his question. "I guess I've just felt like I need to prove myself, to prove that I can be here, academically. They gave me this chance, I don't want to squander it. And that means putting all of my time into my schoolwork."

Peeta considered her. "You were, like, the smarted girl in our high school, right?"

Katniss scoffed. "Hardly."

Peeta shook his head. "No, I know you were smart. You were always winning science prizes and stuff. You deserve to be here, Katniss. Don't ever doubt that."

His words moved her in a way she couldn't quite understand. "You were really paying that much attention to me in high school?"

A red leaf floated down through the air between them and Peeta reached out and grabbed it, his cheeks slightly flushed. "I always paid attention, from when we were little kids."

That wasn't really an answer to her question, but she wasn't sure what her question actually was.

He kept going. "You know what you said the other day, about us being different?"

She nodded.

"Well, we're not so different here. Here we can just be…us."

He reached out and handed her the leaf he had caught, and she took it, feeling that strange warmth return to her belly the tips of his fingers brushed her hand.

By the time they made it back to her dorm, the sun was setting, and the air was decidedly colder than it had been that afternoon.

"Thanks for taking me canoeing. This was really fun," Katniss said, shivering on the front steps of her building.

Peeta's face broke into a grin. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," she said, feeling her own mouth curve upwards too.

"Can I, uh, call you sometime? There's other fun stuff to do around here that I could show you. Wouldn't want you to spend all your time studying."

Katniss almost laughed at the absurdity of it—why was he asking her permission to call when she would probably see him in the dining hall in a few days anyway?—but Peeta looked so vulnerable in that moment that she held it back.

"Sure, I'd like that," she said.

Peeta stepped forward and for a moment Katniss felt a panic—was he going to kiss her? But he just pulled her into his strong arms and gave her a squeeze and she realized he was giving her a hug. When was the last time she'd been hugged? When she left Prim and her mother at the airport, she guessed. This was a different kind of hug, though. This was Peeta, who could fold her into a broad-shouldered embrace that would have lifted her off her feet if she hadn't been standing a few steps above him on the stairs, who smelled like pine with a hint of wood smoke.

She let her arms reach around and hug him back tentatively at first, and then a bit more surely, and she _liked_ it. And then they were letting go.

"I'll see you, Katniss," Peeta said as he began backing away.

"See you, Peeta," she said, and she let herself watch him go for a few steps before turning to head inside.

* * *

Katniss felt lighter than she had in weeks by the time she was back in her room, and her roommate noticed.

"You should come to this party with me tonight, Katniss," Stacy said as she stood in front of her mirror and rearranged the tight red top she had just put on.

Katniss had finished her biology homework earlier than she expected—she wasn't kidding when she told Peeta she had work to do—and had decided to get an early start on the novel she had to read for her Russian lit class. With her box of Swiss Miss hot chocolate and the electric kettle she was all set for an evening of trying to keep track of all the different names each character seemed to have.

She looked up from her book. "Are you serious?"

Stacy met her eyes in the mirror. "Did I or did I not see you hugging a guy outside our dorm today?"

Katniss felt her cheeks burn, and Stacy smirked.

"See? I caught you socializing. I think you can handle a little party," she said.

Katniss folded down the corner of her current page in _The Brothers Karamazov_. "Since when do you care about my social life?"

Stacy rolled her eyes and shook out her long blonde hair. "You never do anything, Katniss! You just work, all the time, and it is so, _so_ boring. Do you not know how to relax _at all_?"

Katniss set her book down, feeling her hackles rise. "Is that a challenge?"

Stacy whipped around and faced her, eyes flashing. "Maybe it is. I dare you, Katniss Everdeen, to come out with me tonight."

"Is this a slumber party?" Katniss snapped back.

"So many questions," Stacy muttered as she dove into her closet, yanking out something on a hanger. "Here, try this."

Katniss would look back on this moment later and know that this was the turning point, the part where she should have just opened her book back up and gotten back to her boring life. If she had just ignored Stacy…

But Katniss was the kind of person who rose to a challenge. If someone said she couldn't do something, she felt the need to put her nose to the grindstone and prove that person wrong, and even though this was just her flighty college roommate, the dare had been issued.

And so there she was, fifteen minutes later, standing in front of the mirror wearing a black top cut low over her back and a pair of dark, skinny jeans tucked into a pair of Stacy's heeled boots. Her hair flowed over her shoulders and her eyes looked slightly smoky from the small amount of makeup she'd permitted.

She looked…

"Hot. You look hot," Stacy said. "Now let's go."

Katniss didn't think she looked hot. She knew how to get dressed up from the several waitressing jobs she'd held over the years, but was part of the uniform. Dressed like this—like the girls she saw prancing off to frat parties every weekend—she felt silly, like an imposter.

_Yeah, you say you don't care about parading yourself around like a piece of meat, but here you are on your way to some frat with your airhead roommate_, she thought to herself as they headed out to wherever Stacy was taking them.

It turned out not to be that far at all. She thought they'd be heading to "Frat Row," which was across the Green and past Baker Library. But Stacy steered them in the opposite direction, behind their dorm and down the hill towards the gymnasium.

"Where are we going?" Katniss asked.

Stacy let out a sigh. "Everyone knows the coolest frats aren't on Frat Row," she said, as if she were explaining that fact to a toddler.

"Aren't they all the same?"

Stacy didn't even deign to respond to that. Five minutes later she was marching Katniss up the front walk to a large brick house with white trim, similar in style to the other old buildings in Hanover. The letters "XH" were emblazoned above the door. Music boomed from inside and people were lined up waiting to get inside.

Stacy marched them straight to the front of the line and made eyes at the guy at the door, and then she pulled Katniss along behind her as they went inside.

The first thing Katniss noticed was how warm it was. A blast of hot air hit her right as the booming noise from outside became an all-out assault on her ears. Stacy snaked through the crowd, towing Katinss with her, and they passed a packed dance floor on their right which Katniss decided was the source of the heat. Sweaty bodies gyrated to hip hop and a disco ball spun overhead.

Stacy had a different destination in mind, however, and soon they were descending a staircase towards what Katniss guessed was the basement of the house. They made their way down in one line while another line of people snaked back up, holding plastic cups of beer.

"The beer is down here!" Stacy shouted over the din of the party.

They continued down and soon Stacy was squealing as she met up with her group of friends, who Katniss recognized from the times they had come by the room. One of them—a small redhead whose name Katniss couldn't remember—handed her a beer.

"Stacy said she was bringing you out," the girl said. "I didn't believe her, but here you are."

Katniss was ignoring her and looking past the girls to the large room behind her, where several lined up in a row with people playing beer pong. Gale had taught her to play once when they'd gone to a party at one of his cousin's places outside the city, and he'd drunk most of the beer.

People swarmed around the tables, making their way to the back of the room where a bar was set up and three tall, muscular guys handed out beers. There was something about the way the guys were built, the way they carried themselves, that got Katniss' attention.

"Wait, where are we, exactly?" she asked the redhead.

"We're at Chi Heorot, of course," she said. "It's the hockey frat."

And right at that moment, a loud cheer erupted from a nearby table where a team—a guy and a girl—had just won a game of beer pong. The girl jumped up into the guy's arms and planted a kiss on his lips, and the guy laughed and set her down, and then looked up.

Katniss felt her heart jump into her throat as she recognized him, and a second later he met her eyes. It was Peeta.

* * *

_Holy shit holy shit holy shit_, Peeta thought, disentangling himself from Carrie Clove.

What was Katniss doing here?

"Peeta," Carrie whined, tugging at his arm.

But he was distracted. Katniss was here, standing across the room, wearing a sleek black top unlike anything he'd ever seen her in before. His first thought was that she looked gorgeous. His second thought was that she looked out of place. She was wearing makeup, and she was surrounded by a gaggle of girls of the type who did typically hang around the place.

His feet began to move toward her before he even knew where he was going, and he found himself making his way through the crowd.

"Katniss!" he called, and she turned away suddenly, heading for the stairs. Peeta felt his mouth go dry as he took in the low-cut back of her shirt that exposed an enticing swath of her dusky skin.

"Katniss, hey, wait up!"

He caught her right as she was getting to the staircase, and his hand on her arm finally got her to turn back to him.

"Hey," he said, his heart beating quickly in his chest the way it always did when he saw her. That thrill she gave him, it had been there for years, and it was stronger now than ever.

"Hey Peeta," Katniss said.

"I can't believe you're here, I would have invited you if I'd know you would be interested…it's awesome that you're here," Peeta said, suddenly wanting nothing more than to spend the rest of the night making Katniss happy.

A tall blonde next to Katniss was staring at him, then at Katniss, and then back at him, her mouth agape.

"Wait a minute," she said to Katniss. "This is the guy you were with earlier today, isn't it?"

Peeta smiled. "Guilty as charged."

"You didn't tell me you knew any hockey players, Katniss," the blonde continued accusingly.

Katniss just shrugged. "I didn't think it mattered."

The blonde scoffed, then reached her hand out to Peeta. "Hi, I'm Stacy, Stacy Glimmer. Katniss' roommate."

"I'm Peeta Mellark. Katniss and I grew up together," he said, bestowing his smile on all of the girls who now stared at him.

"Oh, we know who you are," Stacy said, and then she turned to Katniss. "You have been withholding some major information from me, roommate."

Katniss seemed to be composing herself inside, in that way she had about her. Peeta had a sudden burst of inspiration.

"Katniss, do you play pong?" he asked.

"You mean beer pong?" she said.

"Yeah, the version here is slightly different, we just call it pong. Do you want to play? I still have this table."

Stacy was nodding at Katniss and shoving her towards the table, but Katniss wasn't heeding her. He felt something latch onto his side and knew what had misdirected her attention.

"Peetaaaaa," Carrie whined, dangling herself in what she clearly thought was a seductive manner from his arm. "Come back, it's time for our next game."

"Sure, I'll play," Katniss said, surprising everyone. She stood tall, sexy as hell in her black shirt and slim jeans, and she had an air of confidence about her that set her a league apart from the other girls in the room.

"Who are you?" Carrie asked, and Peeta hurried to introduce her.

"I'm Katniss Everdeen," she said. "Peeta and I…grew up together?"

Nobody noticed the ironic tone in her voice except Peeta, who knew she was calling him out for his description.

"Well, who's your partner?" Carrie went on as she rubbed Peeta's bicep. She clearly wasn't ready to relinquish him.

Peeta was about to tell her he was going to play with Katniss when they were all interrupted.

"I'll be your partner, Katniss Everdeen," a seductive voice said.

Standing there, at the edge of the circle that had formed around their little scene, was the captain of the hockey team himself, Finnick Odair.

* * *

Katniss tilted the half cup of beer back and swallowed its contents. Her first game of pong was predictably mediocre, and if it weren't for her partner, she would have lost long ago.

Speaking of, who was this guy? He'd suddenly appeared at her side, volunteering to be her partner in this party game. He was gorgeous, that much was true. Taller than Peeta, with sea-green eyes and bronze hair that curled attractively over his brow, his muscular chest encased in a Chicago Blackhawks t-shirt,he was easily one of the most attractive men Katniss had ever seen. She assumed he was a teammate of Peeta's, as he had the classic hockey player build and the cockiness to go with it.

Finnick—that was his name—served the ball and after a short volley he knocked it into one of the cups on Peeta's side and slammed his paddle on the table in celebration before raising it to tap Katniss' paddle.

"Good work, partner," he said.

"Uh, thanks, I'm pretty sure that was all you," she said back.

He just winked at her.

She laughed internally. This was absurd. She, the most boring biology major in the history of time, was playing a drinking game in a frat basement with a couple of hockey players and their sycophants. She'd taken a dare and this was the result, so she would go through with it.

She knew the sycophants were watching her. She thought she caught a few whispers of "who is that?" and "where did she come from?" before she decided to tune out the chatter. They all had the same polished gleam as her roommate, with their shining, expensive haircuts and their unnaturally tanned skin. Katniss, with her naturally dark skin and her exotic, gray-eyed beauty, was undeniably different from them.

She knew Peeta liked how she looked. She could feel it in the way he watched her across the table, and she felt powerful somehow. Her experience with men wasn't extensive—a few experimental kisses with Gale when they were young and naïve and a nice-but-bland boy from her calculus class last year who had taken her out a few times—but she knew when a man looked at her with interest. And Peeta Mellark looked at her like that.

The ball flew toward Katniss suddenly and she reached out with her paddle, tapping it across to click against the rim of one of Peeta and his partner's cups, forcing them to drink, and Finnick was giving her a cheer.

"I picked a winner," he said.

Peeta looked at her curiously across the table as he set down the cup. Had it really been only hours earlier that they had been canoeing together?

"Your boyfriend looks jealous," Finnick whispered in her ear.

"He's not my boyfriend," Katniss replied.

"Well, he's acting like he is," Finnick said back.

He kind of was, she supposed. He was ignoring his partner—Karen or something was her name—and shooting dirty looks at Finnick.

The game continued and soon Katniss was watching Finnick hit the ball into their opponents' last cup, tossing his paddle down in victory. To her surprise, he picked her up and spun her around.

"Good game, partner. I'm glad to finally meet you," he said, his breath at her ear before he left to go talk to a guy who was waving him over from the bar. This guy was something else.

When she was back on the ground Katniss thought things couldn't get any weirder until she found herself suddenly facing Peeta's partner, who was standing there with her hands crossed over her chest.

"I don't know who you are," she said, "Or who you _think_ you are, but I know that you're nothing but Peeta's charity case."

Katniss felt her blood go cold. "Excuse me?"

"He's_ mine_, and you're just some nobody from back home, and don't you forget that."

Katniss felt like all of the girls' eyes were on her in that moment, and her instincts screamed in her mind for her to get out of there.

She didn't need these people.

She shook her head at the girl and turned away from her, pushing her way through the crowd. She didn't care which way she threw her elbows, she just wanted to get out, get back to a place without all of this drama.

She made it to the first floor and she was just getting to a side door that was propped open to let cool air into the sweltering heat of the party when she felt a hand on her arm.

She turned around and there was Peeta.

"I was just leaving," she said, continuing through the door until she was outside.

Peeta followed her. "I'm sorry about Carrie. She…I didn't know you were coming tonight," he said, the words feeling strange on his tongue.

"Yeah well, I didn't either," she said. "And I don't know why your girlfriend gives a shit if I'm here or not, since you and I are such buddies from growing up together, apparently, but she's a bitch."

"She's not my girlfriend," Peeta said quietly.

"Whatever. I'm out of here."

Katniss began to walk away, the heels of her borrowed boots clicking on the pavement, but Peeta reached for her again, and suddenly she felt herself being spun back around to face him and his mouth was crashing down onto hers.

He pulled her into his chest with one hand resting on her back and the other coming up to tangle in the hair at the nape of her neck. At first she was too surprised to move, and then she felt her mouth moving to respond to his as it slid over hers, coaxing it open, and he tasted like beer and salt and undeniable masculinity.

A moan—of pleasure?—escaped from inside of her and she surprised herself back to reality, her hands coming up to push at his chest. He broke the kiss and dropped his arms, releasing her, and they stood facing each other, neither one completely sure what had just happened.

Katniss was the first to move, shaking her head and then backing away, her heels clicking on the pavement once again as she turned and walked off into the night, leaving Peeta standing there.

She walked without knowing where she was going but somehow managed to get back to her dorm and inside her room, tearing of her clothes and wiping at her face with a cleansing cloth to remove the makeup and just get back to being herself.

_Whoever that is_, she thought to herself as she curled up in her blankets and forced out everything but sleep.


End file.
